Sean Akizuki's East Asian Drama and Movie Blog

It's time for another random review. This time, I finished the Xianxia series,  Blossoming Love . The Chinese title is 千朵桃花一世开 — (Qiān duǒ táohuā yīshì kāi) meaning  A Thousand Peach Blossoms Bloom in a Lifetime .  In this case, I was kind of stressed so I ended up watching a show for the eye candy. Yes, Sun Zhenni is really super pretty in this one. The last time I saw Zhenni was in the series was in Love and Redemption as a gumiho, and she's really pretty. I ended up watching a Xianxia TV series that had a complicated plot about lovers caught in several cycles of reincarnation over  10,000 YEARS. Yes, talk about how much more complicated an Xianxia is compared to a Wuxia in terms of time jumps !  The story of the two lovers is complicated by the passage of 10,000 years and their immortality. The main character is Xie Xuechan (acted by Vin Zhang), who used to be Emperor Zhao Ming. Xuechan is the leader of the Immortal Alliance. Mu Xianling (Zhenni) is the ...

Chen Dao Lee   For a Throwback Thursday Post, I want to review the late Barbie Xu's memorial. Barbie eventually filed for divorce and married DJ Koo, who was her former love flame, and sadly, she passed away too soon after enduring an abusive marriage with her ex-husband. The unveiling of Barbie's rather Manga-esque statue that resembled Makino Tsukushi from Hana Yori Dango felt appropriate. It was because Barbie's acting career was launched by Meteor Garden  -- she was TSUKUSHI MAKINO. IMHO, she was the best Tsukushi to be done in live action! Almost everyone in Meteor Garden resembled their Anime/Manga counterparts one way or another! It was a rainy day indeed (and honestly, Barbie's close friend Rainie Yang showed up, no pun intended) together with her two co-stars Jerry Yan and Vic Zhou. Who could remember the love triangle in Meteor Garden that was actually drawn into a love rollercoaster? The Daoming Si vs. Huatze Lei love triangle for Dong Shan Cai was one of tho...

  I just finished watching the Netflix series Can This Love be Translated?. This is where Sota Fukushi reveals his polyglot reality. Sota was able to speak in English and now he's shown his ability to speak Hangul. Yes, and I tend to get confused between Hangul and Nihongo! Sota plays a side character, but when he does show up -- he NAILS it. The show was released all at once, presumably to compensate for the delay in release after it finished filming. Basically, it feels weird that Sota (who plays the side character Hiro Kurosawa), with Kim Seon-Ho acting as the polyglot Joo Ho-Jin. Ho Jin is a character that could speak  Chinese, English, Italian, and Japanese as his second languages. Go Yoon-Jung acts as an actress playing as, Cha Mu-Hi (an actress), who has her imaginary ego as the ghost Do Ra-Mi. She gets into a not-so-dramatic love triangle. What interested me was the show moving between four different countries. Going from South Korea to Japan to Italy to Canada ca...

Is it me or do I just enjoy beating up Disney live-action remakes? If The Female General was actually one Hua Mulan inspired story, then so is Love in the Clouds . However, Love in the Clouds reminds me of how Disney's Mulan (2020) remake was basically a Mary Sue. However, Love in the Clouds is a slow build a classic switcheroo (where a mother swaps places with a child that's not hers) for her own convenience. Empress Ce (Zhang Ting) executes the perfect switcheroo. In fact, things aren't like what they are supposed to be.  The main heroine Ming Yi (Lu Yu Xiao) poses as the Prince Ming Xian. It's pretty much Hua Mulan except it's not in the army. The big issue is with the tournament of the six realms. Think Mortal Kombat without the violent "Fatalities!" Ji Bozai (Hou Ming Hao) has a dark secret past, where he is the Aladdin. Ji Bozai is the diamond in the rough as he grew up in the Jixing Abyss. Bozai later discovers some dark secrets and decides, "W...

You can never kill heroisms, and not all heroes/heroines are martyred. For Filipinos, the first person to come to their minds is Jose Rizal. For Chinoys, perhaps they also think of both Rizal and Anita Mui. Such is the case of the late Anita, who died from cervical cancer complications on December 30, 2003. Anita was only 40 years old when she died. However, Anita's legacy lives on. It's so sad how four years after she died, the BS biopic called Anita Mui Fei was released. Thankfully, I didn't get the chance to watch Anita Mui Fei,  especially with how it portrayed that Anita died on stage in Andy Lau's arms. THAT. NEVER. HAPPENED. The Anita (2021) film was released. What was sanitized was the reality of Anita's bitter childhood . I read through the biographies of both the late Teresa Teng (who died in 1995) and Regine Velasquez-Alcasid -- both of whom came from poor families but had supportive mothers. Anita's mother was actually a CHRONIC GAMBLER.  Anita didn...

I remember watching Anita   (2021) on Disney+ . I had my complaints about how Louise Wong's impersonations of Anita's concert scenes were BLAH ! I discovered a real Mainland China production that was even worse -- it was called Mei Yan Fang Fei in 2007. Anita (2021) created a fictionalized relationship for the late Anita Mui named Goto Yuki. The other one presented a scene where she and Andy Lau supposedly had a romance. However, that's far from reality! Both projects made me wish for a near perfect Anita biopic -- making me imagine if Mei Yan Fang Fei ,   last 2007, was a Taiwanese production. It would've probably tried to stay true like Le Grande Chaumierre Violette  -- perhaps even take notes of Anita's interview about her toxic mother and brothers. I reimagined what if Anita Mui Fei wasn't a Mainland production but a Taiwanese production. They might reduce the budget or the number of episodes. I imagined this what-if scenario, where a faithful retelling of...

I've been shifting my focus to Korean entertainment lately. However, I'd like to recall my moments with Chinese entertainment, whether it came from the People's Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan (also known as the Republic of China or ROC), or Hong Kong. I grew up hating my Chinese heritage, since I was more into the AMERICAN SUPERIORITY MENTALITY for some time. I hated my Chinese heritage. Well, who wouldn't if one had boomer parents who were still stuck like they were still in China -- THINK OF A CHINOY VERSION OF THE JOY LUCK CLUB ! I could recall my late paternal grandmother, who would rent Chinese movies via Betamax . I couldn't remember the name of the store anymore -- the rental shop already closed years ago! I didn't give an F*** about Chinese entertainment back then. I didn't like studying Chinese either -- well, blame the Chinese schools in the Philippines that taught Chinese through rote overload! It didn't help that there was the rather ridicu...